MPs should lose the right to set their own pay and the number of constituencies could be reduced, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, will say today.

Mr Cameron will suggest that the salary, currently £59,686, and any annual increases could be set by the senior salaries review body, which at the moment makes recommendations on pay but leaves MPs to have the final say. He also wants to consider reducing the number of MPs from 646.

In his submission to the Tories' democracy taskforce, chaired by former chancellor Kenneth Clarke, Mr Cameron will also call for tighter limits on the number of paid and unpaid ministers and a statutory limit on the number of special advisers, which has ballooned to 77 under Labour.

Mr Cameron, once a special adviser himself, will say: "There is a backlash against top-down, dictatorial government and a desire for greater openness, probity and accountability in the institutions that regulate and control our lives.

"Tony Blair's government has tarnished politics and eroded public confidence in our traditional institutions. We need to restore trust and tackle the public's underlying cynicism - that politicians put party before country and partisan spin before the truth. In short, society has changed. Politicians must change too."

Other moves proposed by Mr Cameron include reversing the trend towards what the Tories see as an increasingly presidential "Department of the Prime Minister", and a civil service act to entrench the independence of Whitehall officials.

Ahead of the Conservatives' annual conference, which begins in Bournemouth on Sunday, this week's Economist magazine says Mr Cameron is "so far, all style and not enough substance" and that he needs to acquire the kind of "intellectual seriousness" possessed by Gordon Brown.

The Tory chairman, Francis Maude, defended the charge that the party was light on policy. He told ePolitix.com that the statement of aims and values, Built to Last, was "not a comprehensive manifesto, it never was meant to be. The Lord's Prayer contains 126 words, the 10 Commandments doesn't contain that much more - you don't have to have a 10,000 page document to be substantive."